USSR communists genocide operations against non-russians. Finnish- Estonian Operation. Shot more than 17,000

Estonian Operation: prosecuted  9735 persons, shot 7998

Finnish Operation: prosecuted  11,066 persons, executed 9078

***

Ingria Finns

In 1899, the first song festival in Ingria was held in Puutosti (Skuoritsa).

By 1897, the number of Ingrian Finns had grown to 130,413, and by 1917 it exceeded 140,000 (45,000 in Northern Ingria, 52,000 in Central (Eastern) Ingria and 30,000 in Western Ingria, the rest in Petrograd).

Ingrians in the Soviet Union

After the October Revolution, Ingrian Finns inhabiting the southern part of the Karelian Isthmus seceded from Bolshevik Russia and formed the short-lived Republic of North Ingria, which was backed by Finland. It was reintegrated with Russia at the end of 1920 under the Treaty of Tartu, but it enjoyed a certain degree of national autonomy. From 1928 to 1939, Ingrian Finns in North Ingria constituted the Kuivaisi National District with its center in Toksova and Finnish as its official language.

The First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union in 1926 recorded 114,831 "Leningrad Finns", as Ingrian Finns were then called.

Soviet rule, and the German occupation (1941–1944) during World War II, were as disastrous for the Ingrian Finns as for other small ethnic groups. Many Ingrian Finns were either executed, deported to Siberia, or forced to relocate to other parts of the Soviet Union. There were also refugees to Finland, where they were assimilated.

In 1928, collectivization of agriculture started in Ingria. To facilitate it,

• in 1929-1931, 18,000 people (4,320 families) from North Ingria were deported to East Karelia or the Kola Peninsula, as well as to Kazakhstan and other parts of Central Asia. The situation for the Ingrian Finns deteriorated further because of the Soviet plan to create restricted security zones along the borders with Finland and Estonia, free of the Finnic peoples, who were considered politically unreliable.
• In April 1935 7,000 people (2,000 families) were deported from Ingria to Kazakhstan, elsewhere in Central Asia, and the Ural region.
• In May and June 1936 20,000 people, the entire Finnish population of the parishes of Valkeasaari, Lempaala, Vuole and Miikkulainen near the Finnish border, were transferred to the area around Cherepovets. In Ingria they were replaced by people from other parts of the Soviet Union.

In 1937 Lutheran churches and Finnish-language schools in Ingria were closed down, and publications and radio broadcasting in Finnish were suspended.

In March 1939 the Kuivaisi National District was liquidated.

Initially during the Winter War, the Soviet policy was mixed. On the one hand, Stalin's government largely destroyed Ingrian Finnish culture, but on the other hand, the maintenance of a Finnish-speaking population was desired as a way to legitimize the planned occupation of Finland. The failure of the puppet Terijoki government led to the ultimate result that in 1941, Moscow officially decided that Ingrian Finns were "unreliable, and

• in 1942 most of the Ingrian Finns remaining in Ingria were forcibly relocated to Siberia. During the Finnish and German occupation of the area, Ingrian Finns were evacuated to Finland. However, after the Continuation War, most of these Ingrian Finns, who were still Soviet citizens, were forcibly returned to the Soviet Union, where they were dispersed into Central Russia. However, some Ingrian Finns were able to flee to Sweden, and nearly 4,000 were able to remain in Finland. Ingrian Finns were largely forgotten during the presidencies of Juho Kusti Paasikivi and Urho Kekkonen.

After the war many Ingrian Finns settled in Soviet-controlled Estonia.